Patient satisfaction score

[kaycee18]

Hello Guys;

My job is really beating us down about pt satisfaction scores n physicians are getting into trouble for not having good scores. How is your job dealing with patient satisfaction? What are your tips for pleasing your patients? Like pr who want opiates or do not want to leave the hospital.

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[chessknt]

Hello Guys;

My job is really beating us down about pt satisfaction scores n physicians are getting into trouble for not having good scores. How is your job dealing with patient satisfaction? What are your tips for pleasing your patients? Like pr who want opiates or do not want to leave the hospital.

It is an objectively harmful metric (prototypical study cited is usually The Cost of Satisfaction). The fact that your scores are low is a sign you are probably a good doctor (on the inpatient side at least).

If you are employed by a health system then the decisions that come from the top levels and filter their way down to the people actually working can get lost in translation. It would be beneficial if you and your colleagues could sit down with upper level leadership to try to figure out what they are trying to achieve by improving the scores and then you could provide input on how that might be achieved that does not involve patient satisfaction scores.

 

[collegestud2013]

Hello Guys;

My job is really beating us down about pt satisfaction scores n physicians are getting into trouble for not having good scores. How is your job dealing with patient satisfaction? What are your tips for pleasing your patients? Like pr who want opiates or do not want to leave the hospital.

If they're using the HCAHPS score that's sent by CMS, there's a lot of issues with it as a metric and many of those factors you unfortunately don't have control over. Only a very small percentage of patients actually fill it out in the first in place. And as a hospitalist, it's hard to even make sure the score they're giving actually represents their opinion of you (and not your colleagues) since most patients seen by multiple physicians while in the hospital (including the ED provider, other hospitalists, multiple specialist consults) and many can't even remember who is who. But in terms of factors you have control over, bedside manners and not seeming rushed and taking time to fully answer all the patients questions on your rounds seems like something you have control over (though even this can be hard if you're seeing a large patient census). And giving the patient more of what they want helps with these scores, like keeping them in the hospital if they want to stay or ordering any tests or consults they want (even if it's not really indicated in the inpatient setting). I would be careful about giving patients too much narcotics since it'll be your fault if they overdose (they might give otherwise give you a lower score on these surveys but that's probably the cases you don't have control over. Most admins probably will only take notice if it becomes a pattern that your scores a consistently lower than everyone else in your group.